Optical system helps tube fabricator with high-speed measurements

How do you build a business that lasts in a competitive market for more than 50 years? Better yet, how do you build one the does more than just survive through decades of economic ups and downs to find itself thriving in the midst of a volatile pandemic economy? In a word, the answer is advancement. Allowing a few more words, one might say do not get complacent, or in more typical corporate terms, continuous improvement. Regardless of the phrase, the underlying sentiment sums up the business strategy for Spinco Metal Products, Newark, N.Y.

Founded in 1966, it has been operated by the same family throughout the decades. The company name reflects its work producing spun copper driers and drier assemblies for air-conditioning and refrigeration systems. With around 75 employees, Spinco also makes specialized products for several niche markets, including brazed assemblies, fabricated tubing, rigid hydraulic lines, and machined products.

Remaining competitive and profitable in a high-mix/low-volume environment—many orders are for fewer than 25 pieces—with a dynamic production schedule requires advancements in production technology.

“Money is spent to stay ahead of the competition,” said Engineering & Quality Manager David Gardner as he described some of his recent advancements. “That investment is to keep a separation between us and the competition.”

Improvements in Bending

Back in 2018 Spinco recognized a need to make some investments to improve its tube bending operations. Its goal was to improve both the speed and accuracy of bending.

“We don’t get rid of machines until we cannot fix them anymore,” said Gardner. “But we also like to take advantage of the latest advancements. So our bender count continued to rise.” To maintain its competitive edge, Spinco developed an expansion plan that would provide room for more new benders and enable the better organization of the tube bending workflow.

In 2019 the company implemented the plan by adding a significant expansion to its shop. It purchased a couple of new, all-electric Crippa tube benders and two new Chiyoda benders.

“With the new benders, my repeatability goes up and my setup time goes down,” Gardner noted. To support its speed and accuracy goals, Spinco also acquired a TubeInspect P8 from Accurex Measurement.

“The Accurex was part of that master plan,” said Gardner, “because with the Accurex our productivity goes way up.” Over the next 18 months Spinco reorganized its manufacturing floor and moved all its benders into the new bending shop. Sitting in the center of the shop surrounded by 18 CNC benders is the single inspection machine that supports them all.

The TubeInspect is an optical tube gauge. Spinco has the P8 model, which has eight cameras mounted in the top of the enclosure looking down at an illuminated 40- by 22-in. measurement area. The machine uses photos from its cameras to measure the tube’s dimensions. Each photo includes a silhouette of the tube and many black dots, which are the photogrammetry targets that serve as the calibrated reference. The BendingStudio software that runs the machine takes the photos and does the photogrammetry calculations to produce a 3D model accurate to 35 microns. Inspection is completed in about 10 seconds using the specified alignment and inspection criteria. Any deviations of the tube from nominal are calculated and translated into corrections that are fed back to the CNC benders. The process is so fast that it dramatically reduces times for bender setups, first article inspection, and periodic inspections.

The Journey from 2019 to 2021

Back in 2019 before the expansion plan, the process for setting up a new part involved the bender operator making the changes to the bender, producing a first article, taking the first article to the inspector, and waiting for the inspector to check the part with an inspection arm. With 50 setups per day, the inspector was often backed up.

Gardner explained, “I used to have the operator bring the guy (inspector) a piece, set it on the table, and come back 15 minutes later, sometimes even running the machine on the ‘I betcha that’s OK’ rule, so you had that risk of scrap if the first piece was not in tolerance.” If the part was good, they would get the report from the inspector and make the parts. If the part needed adjustment, the operator would make changes and repeat the process.

Today the operators make the changes to the bender, produce a first article, and inspect it themselves in seconds. If adjustments are needed, they are communicated straight back to the bender and the next part is perfected. When the part passes inspection on the optical system, the actual inspector simply reviews and approves the report generated by software, and the bender operator is back to making good parts with no waiting.

The shop expansion and reorganization, along with the addition of the optical gauge, have had an immense impact on the company’s speed and manufacturing flexibility. Previously the company did about 50 setups a day on 14 machines; it recently hit a peak when it ran 40 small jobs on one machine in an eight-hour day.

Opportunities Abound

A quote attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca says that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. The COVID-19 pandemic that wrought havoc on the economy in 2020 and into 2021 was terrible beyond description, but it also created opportunity. Spinco made the improvements to its tube bending operations in 2019 based on good business planning but with no awareness about the coming crisis.

Like most companies, Spinco has been dealing with a general shortage of manufacturing labor and temporary shortages due to COVID-19 contact tracing and resulting quarantines. Because the optical measurement system reduced the need for skilled labor by simplifying tube inspection and bender setup adjustments, Spinco has been able to continue production despite the labor obstacles.

As the pharmaceutical industry scrambled and succeeded in developing vaccines for COVID-19, it created a spike in demand for refrigeration systems for vaccine storage.

“The scientific community and the medical device community have been very, very busy,” Gardner said. With a strong background in refrigeration and its improved manufacturing flexibility, Spinco was able to meet the demand and help empower the nation’s fight against COVID-19.

Tubes for medical devices have very specific, demanding dimensional requirements.

“Completing that manually or with an arm is not fun, at all,” said Gardner. The profile inspection is done automatically with the optical system, so Spinco can easily complete the required certificates of compliance with no extra effort. Both the refrigeration products and medical device tubes are very specialized and require small batches for many different parts, which Spinco was able to meet.

Spinco has seen other benefits from its proactive improvements. It capitalized on demand growth for refrigeration components for recreational vehicles and also produced tubes for some newer applications it had not previously served, such as kayak racks and fuel cell stacks for clean mobility.

The company continues to make investments to keep ahead of the pack. Currently Spinco is awaiting the arrival of a new machining center that will expand its capabilities in that area. With continued advancement in its technology, Spinco is prepared to convert the next opportunity into “luck” that will propel it forward toward more decades of successful operation.